Estimating the Economic Model of Crime With Individual Data

Ann Dryden Witte

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1980, vol. 94, issue 1, 57-84

Abstract: The paper develops a variant of the economic model of crime. The model developed is estimated using information on the post-release activities of a sample of men released from the North Carolina prison system. Both the expected certainty and severity of punishment are found to deter criminal activity in a number of instances and a 1 percent increase in certainty is generally found to have a greater effect than a similar increase in severity. Certainty of punishment is found to have a greater effect for relatively minor offenders and severity for persons offenders. While higher legal wages are found to deter, their effect is quite weak.

Date: 1980
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